CBS 11 - Dallas / Fort Worth's Source for Breaking News, Weather, and Sports: Family Debates Hospital’s Action in Woman’s Death

CBS 11 - Family Debates Hospital’s Action in Woman’s Death

(CBS 11 News) "It was against our will to unplug her. We never wanted that.”

Daniel Salvi and his family surrounded his sister’s bedside Monday at Baylor Regional Medical Center in Plano and watched doctors take the 27-year-old off life support.

"It didn't take long — 15 to 16 minutes,” Tirhas Habtegiris’ brother recalled.

Habtegiris had abdominal cancer that spread to her lungs. Eventually, she was on a ventilator and her cousin took care of her.

The family said doctors told them they would have to remove her from life support in 10 days.

When the family disagreed, the hospital's Clinical Ethics Committee met and decided to take Habtegiris off the ventilator.

The hospital declined an on-camera interview, but in a statement said they "contacted 12 facilities including hospitals, long term acute care facilities and nursing homes, all of whom declined to accept the patient.”

Salvi believes this would not have happened if his sister had health insurance.

"If you don't have money in this country, you're nothing. You're not a human being."

But a Dallas attorney who worked on the law said money has nothing to do with it and only clinical matters are considered.

Dr. Allan Shulkin, who specializes in pulmonary and critical care medicine at another Dallas hospital, supports the law.

"Sometimes applying technology when there is no other opportunity for recovery is wrong not because it’s expensive, but because it prolong suffering," he said.

Salvi said his sister wanted to die in her mother's arms.

A hospital spokesperson the facility offered to hire an immigration attorney free of charge to help bring the woman's mother from East Africa.

Relatives, however, said the East African process was too lengthy.

(CBS 11 News)

I see, under Bush's "compassionate conservatism", doctors are allowed to kill those without insurance. God help our corporatist culture of death!

CBSNews.com: Blog - Corey Maye: "An Interesting Test of the Power of the Blogosphere"

CBSNews.com: Blog

While the fate of Stanley “Tookie” Williams drew plenty of attention in the in the mainstream media, many in the blogosphere – on the right and the left (Battlepanda has assembled a list of them, conveniently organized by political ideology) – have been lamenting the lack of similar attention to the death penalty case of Cory Maye. Maye is on death row for killing a police officer. Radley Balko of the libertarian blog The Agitator was first to blog about Maye, and those who have followed seem to agree that Maye is the victim of overzealous police and racial bias and doesn’t deserve the death penalty.

Balko offers a detailed summary of his findings in the case and sums it up as such:

Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn't named in the warrant, and wasn't a suspect. The man, frigthened [sic] for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door's been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town's police chief. He's later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit says the case “sounds like a total miscarriage of justice”:

If the facts are as [Balko] reports, this guy never should have been charged -- and he should have had a lawsuit (though those, unreasonably, are usually losers) against the police for breaking down the wrong door. The cop who was shot was the police chief's son. And there's a racial angle, too.

Obsidian Wings, who notes that “I don't have any moral qualms about the death penalty as a concept,” adds:

If it is true that Maye was mistakenly thought to be a drug dealer and he reacted as many innocent citizens might to an intruder, he ought not be executed. Maye is not the kind of killer that I have in mind when I argue in defense of the death penalty.

Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly’s Political Animal, who is “not opposed to the death penalty qua death penalty” writes:

Regardless of whether or not there's more here than meets the eye, there's not much doubt that Maye doesn't deserve to die. It's yet another example of how capriciously the death penalty is applied in the United States, and Maye's case is an almost perfect demonstration of the intersection of race, lousy representation, and likely police misconduct that are so often the hallmarks of capital cases.

The Volokh Conspiracy chides the mainstream media:

The MSM hasn't paid any attention to this story, but it should. And I hope the Mississippi Supreme Court will be paying lots of attention, too.

And amid much talk of the influence of bloggers and citizen journalism, Mark Kleiman at Huffington Post chimes in about what this latest crusade might reveal:

This case is an interesting test of the power of the blogosphere. Though the apparent injustice is two years old, it seems to have attracted exactly zero attention in the mainstream media, at least according to a Google News search for "Cory Maye."

Black guy protects his home from white police chief's son and is setenced to death for it. Am I pissed? Yes. Am I surprised? No.

A Few Carry-On Items Come Off the No-Fly List - Los Angeles Times

A Few Carry-On Items Come Off the No-Fly List - Los Angeles Times

A Few Carry-On Items Come Off the No-Fly List
# Airplane passengers will be allowed to pack small scissors and tools, but random screening will be stepped up.

By Ryan G. Murphy Times Staff Writer, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The Transportation Security Administration said Friday that it would allow airplane passengers to carry such previously restricted items as small scissors and tools, but that it would expand random security screenings in an effort to increase protection of airplanes and passengers against onboard bombs.

The agency said the changes would let it focus "on more serious threats." Several legislators, flight attendants and families of the victims of the Sept. 11 hijackings said that allowing sharp objects on airplanes might lead to terrorist attacks.

ADVERTISEMENT
"While changes to the prohibited-item list may attract the most attention, they are not the most important piece," said TSA Administrator Kip Hawley.

He said that after evaluating potential threats and vulnerabilities, the agency decided to focus more "on higher threat areas, like explosives."

Under the new plan, randomly selected passengers would undergo body searches, and their carry-on items would be given more thorough examination.

The agency said that the new screening could include checks for explosives in shoes, the use of hand-held metal detectors to check individual passengers for weapons, and pat-down searches.

The now-standard screening at security checkpoints will continue for all passengers and the items they carry on board.

No longer prohibited from airplanes will be: scissors of less than 4 inches and such tools as screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers measuring less than 7 inches because, an agency spokeswoman said, "those size items are easiest identified by the screener." She said that agency policy prohibited her from being identified by name when expanding on the director's remarks.

Brian Sullivan, a retired Federal Aviation Administration special agent, expressed skepticism about the new plan. He said that locked cockpit doors might be opened by someone with a sharp object.

The transportation agency, he said, "may be acting prematurely, focusing all of their attention on bombs."

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a telephone interview that the agency was trying to save money, but the result would be less security.

"They should be providing additional funding for screening for bombs on planes," he said.

Hawley said at a news conference that from March through September of this year, airport screeners found more than 9.5 million prohibited items in carry-on bags.

"We are opening a lot of bags to take away objects that do not pose a great risk," he said. Hawley said that small scissors and tools account for about 25% of the prohibited items found in passenger carry-on bags.

Airline attendants and families of the Sept. 11 victims criticized the decision.

"This seems like a step backward in aviation and it hasn't been thought out," said Corey Caldwell, representative for the Assn. of Flight Attendants.

"This seems to be a staffing issue in TSA. They want to develop more resources to search for explosive devices but in order to do that, they shouldn't have to sacrifice another portion of security."

I have a better idea. How about we, the flying public, be the ones making the decisions about what is carried on and whether or not we should be searched?

Herald.com | 11/28/2005 | Cops unveil plan to stop terrorists

Herald.com | 11/28/2005 | Cops unveil plan to stop terrorists

Posted on Mon, Nov. 28, 2005

R E L A T E D C O N T E N T
ON THE LOOKOUT: Miami police officers Mayree Morin and Bobby Navarro with the city's new Homeland Security rapid-response emergency vehicle.
NURI VALLBONA/HERALD STAFF
ON THE LOOKOUT: Miami police officers Mayree Morin and Bobby Navarro with the city's new Homeland Security rapid-response emergency vehicle.
M O R E N E W S F R O M topix.net
• Activism
• Terrorism

MIAMI

Cops unveil plan to stop terrorists

Miami police will announce today their plans to prevent a potential terrorist attack.

BY DAVID OVALLE

dovalle@herald.com

Miami police will announce today the creation of an initiative aimed at protecting malls, business districts and other so-called ''soft targets'' from possible terrorist attacks.

Dubbed ''Miami Shield,'' the initiative calls for small groups of uniformed and plainclothes officers to patrol potential target zones at random times, hopefully thwarting terrorists who rely on routines to coordinate attacks.

''We want the terrorists to know we're out there,'' said Miami Deputy Chief Frank Fernandez.

The program also calls for a healthy dose of community relations, teaching business people to spot would-be terrorists and balancing what often can be perceived as heavy-handed police tactics.

''The idea is to strike a good medium, so people feel comfortable,'' said Officer Bobby Navarro, the department's specialist on weapons of mass destruction.

The department will outline the program at a news conference today. Here's how they envision it working: A small group of police officers, perhaps as many as five, will patrol potential ''soft targets'' such as Bayside Marketplace, a Metrorail station or the business district along Brickell Avenue.

The term, soft target, generally refers to civilian targets. One example: the suicide bombings that struck London's public transportation system in July.

The Miami officers will talk to business owners, handing out counter-terrorism brochures and business cards with a police e-mail -- homelandsecurity@miami-police.org -- where people can report suspicious activity.

At the same time, small groups of plainclothes officers will conduct surveillance on possible targets elsewhere.

The random approach -- officers may spend five hours, or 15 minutes, at a target -- is designed to throw off terrorists who may be studying security patterns.

''If they know we're going to have policemen [on] random buses, it's a lot harder for them to feel comfortable taking devices on the buses,'' Navarro said.

The task of thwarting terrorists can be tricky for local police departments.

In New York City, the police department has been lauded for honing its anti-terrorism efforts, but it also has been criticized by civil libertarians for its techniques.

For example, after the London bombings, the New York Police Department began searching riders' bags on the city's subway system.

Critics blasted the police, saying it was intrusive and useless.

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing five subway riders, sued the department, saying the searches ran against the Constitution's safeguard against ``unreasonable searches and seizures.''

Fernandez, the deputy chief, said Miami Shield would be an effective, non-intrusive way to safeguard against terrorists.

''We don't want to do it to the point where we violate the right of freedom of movement and freedom of expression,'' Fernandez said.

Look at the last line. Doesn't that idiot realize that making people show ID when no crime has been committed is limiting freedom of movement? Doesn't he fucking know the Fourth Amendment? I hope the ACLU or some libertarian group gets this law abolished and fast.